On Friday, India defeated South Africa to win their first Twenty20 international match. Interestingly, they even proved to be smarter than the South Africans who have loads of experience in playing this abridged version of ODIs.

Yet it was India who came out triumphant. Dinesh Kaarthik played a superb knock and so did Dinesh Mongia. Everybody feels the reduced overs is tailormade for Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag.

Can India do well in Twenty20 format?

Sports Editor, The Times of India

PS: You may also SMS or email your views. Mail us on mytimesmyvoice@timesgroup.com with 'African Safari' mentioned in the subject line. To SMS, type MTMV, leave a space, type IND, leave a space, type YES or No along with your name, and sms to 8888.

Posted on
Saturday, December 02, 2006 8:37 PM

#re: Will the flying squads deter illegal hill cutting and land filling?

'No,'said Sir Henry.'Except that I have lost one of my shoes.I put a pair outside my door last night.I wanted the ho tel to clean them,but when I went to get them this morning,one had gone.I only bought them yesterday,and I have never worn them.But I wanted a

India can do well in the Twenty20 format but we need to take some 4 or 5 specialist in that format of cricket. Also the players who hits the ball well have to give chances. Players like Sachin , Sehwag and Dravid must include in the game. Because they can shape the innings well and at ant point of time can change the scenario of the match. As far as bowler is concern Kumble , Zaheer , Shreesanth , Patrhan are good bowlers.

Please send this letter to anyone who loves India and cricket. Who wrote the letter is not important. Does Mr. Pawar do anything is more important. Let’s try our best!

An open letter to Mr. Shard Pawar (the president of BCCI).

Sir,

I am a fan of largest cricket playing country (India) with richest cricket board (BCCI). Even though we have largest population over one billion and richest cricket board we never been at number one either in test or in ODI. I am really frustrated. As you are the one who has power to do something, can you do anything and everything to make our country at number one in next three months just before the world cup? As we have man, money, and brain power it does not seems too difficulty. If you can do that then that will be your right answer to the Australian’s arrogance. Can you do honest try even regardless you succeed?

Here I am giving some important points why I believe India can be number one in cricket. Please look at the table below.

- We are the largest cricket playing country, 55 times larger than Australia (current number 1). Our population is 110 carore. We have many players to choose from.
- Cricket is our primary sport.
- BCCI is the richest board.

Here I am giving some reasons why India is not at number one and what can we do. I haven’t put in any particular order.

- Our players play for themselves not for country. We must play as a team on ground, must forget what mother language we speak, must leave personal problems behind, and must understand that we are not bigger than country.
- We surely can’t win with only 3 full time bowlers. Everyone wants to be a batsman. We need to understand that bowling is as important as batting and match can win with bowling also. We must find at least 3 bowlers, at least 6 feet 3 inches tall, can bowl at 90+ miles speed, and could use brain. We must find, recruit, and coach fast bowlers by going in each city and allowing every eligible youth a chance. We also must produce all rounders too. Our spinners must have to be good with bat, and field.
- We must have to be good with fielding. This is really important factor. It’s really tragic that we don’t give fielding as much importance as batting and bowling. Have you seen our senior players are hesitant to dive just because they don’t want to be injured and risk their carrier? This is really selfish. They are not playing for country. In close counter every saved run and catch by good diving efforts is decider. This type of player need to identify and must be warned, laid off if needed. We must need pool of good players to show seniors that without them team certainly could win in future. Everyone has to give their best in fielding.
- We have good record at home but really bad outside just because lack of international category pitches at home. We make slow turning, dead pitches for our batsmen and spinners. So we have good record at home but really bad outside. We need to make bouncy and fast pitches to give experience to our batsmen and bowlers.
- Our team players play for personal records. They don’t play for team. It’s hard to digest fact! Have you noticed any our batsman slowing down after making 70/80 runs in one day game to finish his century? If yes then that player is playing for his own record, not for country. It’s not just that player’s fault. We also give too much importance in that regards instead of winning. Record does not matter if we don’t win. Sir Don Bradman made his 29 centuries in just 52 tests, with average of 99. How many our batsman has that class? We must stop comparing and focus on winning. No one is bigger than country. We must warn if someone is doing this, laid if required.
- We fail to identify and promote talented players. Stronger groups/states get their players promoted to state/country level. Such a dirty politics. Whoever is doing this should be ashamed. To help build strongest team we must not do this and who ever is doing this should be reported to media. Media also should not encourage “Juthwad” or “Prantwad”. Doing such things is betraying our country.
- We don’t have courage to ask non performing batsman or bowler to seat aside. As soon as someone (like coach, selector) does that media, city, state, groups see that as their insult. We should be respect to the player who helped team in past. Our mentality must be changed that removing non performing player is not insult to the player. Our goal is to win every game. Look at Australia and check how and why they are so successful? They play as a team for the country and do not hesitate to remove non performing player.
- Our team players need to understand that cricket is their MAIN and ONLY profession, not modeling or any other ways of making money. As soon as any player make in to team, become little successful, thinks that now he has permanent position and starts making extra money by modeling and so many other ways. At cost of their skill improvement. Eventually they become part time cricketer and full time businessman, cashing on their popularity. They must understand their main profession is cricket and need to spend their extra time in improving their techniques, learn new things. At least they should put some limit on their money hunger.
- Our board’s main focus is earning more money. This is bitter fact. Our main focus should be improving our team and make our team number one. We must find talented players, prepare, coach, and help them.

Certainly not,most of the cricketers are busy advertising for liquor etc thereby earning crores at the cost of cricket.BCCI must ban cricketers accepting advertisement that is the only way they will focus and practice properly. or else they should play "Gilli Danda" and would be world champions as no other country plays Gilli Danda!!!!!1

Sir,
India can do wonders in TwentyODIformat. They have potentital and magic to win over from any hardships. We should encourage them to go ahead with the spirit and not to project them too much as after all they are humanbeings. A country has to support the players for their winning and failure that is called Isportsman spirit that India is lacking.

INDIAN CRICKETER ARE FOND OF PLAYING THEIR HOME TURF PITCHES VERY GOOD WHEREAS THE FAST PITCHES ARE BANE FOR THE SPELL OF FAST BOWLING IS VERY DANGEROUS FOR THEM , WE CAN EXPECT GOOR CRICKET WHEN SOUTH AFRICA WILL COME IN INDIA AND INDIA WILL DEFEAT THEM

Anyways, a Onedayer is all about playing for your country & doing your best on that pitch.I don't think we need to think about 20-20 version at this stage where we are gonna face the Biggest Event very soon - ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 which is a 50 Overs Game.I thought that we were running out of the good Bawlers but, what the hell!!! Here we need to improve & change our Batsmen as well.Oh My Lord...No Indian would like to see their team India in this kind of critical condition especially while we are just a few months aways from the Great World Cup.We shouldn't judge our performance from just a single game which wasn't chased that much quicker then expected.I just would like to add one thing here : Hu Ha India..Ayega India.

On Friday, India defeated South Africa to win their first Twenty20 international match. Interestingly, they even proved to be smarter than the South Africans who have loads of experience in playing this abridged version of ODIs.

Yet it was India who came out triumphant. Dinesh Kaarthik played a superb knock and so did Dinesh Mongia. Everybody feels the reduced overs is tailormade for Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag

HaHa!India is the worst team in the world.It can never do well.

Please do not under estinate India as we have good player for batting and bowling for 20 overs, and are cable to beat any team in the world and will definately do well in the Twenty20 format.

Seeing the current form of the men in blue , it's quite difficult to say anything . But the win at the Wanderer's might have certainly boost their confidence for the future part of the tour . Also the anger and the reaction's of the Indian people back home might have shacken them. So we should live on our hopes , that they do well and see what actually happens there.

India can certainly do well in twenty 20 format as it has lot of potential . But one cant judge them on the basis of only one victory & moreover SA had rested 6 of its main players including Ntini & Nel who had tormented them in earlier matches . Considering this it should have been a cake walk for Indians but they won it after lot of huffing & puffing thanks largely to brilliant effort by young Dinesh

dear indian
all media upsurge and internet age have brought tension and unrest in human mind, more the people trying to learn , more the life becoming competative and fruitless, our age when we were youth in 1960-1970 , life was very charming and full oflove, bollywood brought somuch bad sense to our youth, now it is in reach of everyone, everyone is hankering after hallucination , nothing, life is become hell, all relation have become money, all u s a culture is going to invade the indian culture, everything will be for sale

how to get out of it ,simply follow the yoga and become follower of mahatama budda, nothing new and old exist in this world, this the karma and enlightement of soul which give peace to you, life is full of up and down, altitude and our behavious conditions our neighbourhood, thankyou for reading my worlds

wanted to join Indian cricket team but they all defeated me . Now I watch criiiiickeeeeeeeettttt and drink alot.

Let them Play

It was good to see india winning their 1st 20-20 .SA HAD DROPPED 6 EXPERIENCED PLAYERS,so the Indians were able to handle the pressure on SA. Otherwise ,in the case of Pollock, Ntini,etc; it would've been a totally different case.For Indians to establish themselves well in 20-20, they need to exploit more pitch-hitting batsmen from the state levels. Only test cricket in state levels has made Ranji trophy,etc boring for the audience.
20-20 or 50over game format should be held at least 3-4 times in a year

dear indian
all media upsurge and internet age have brought tension and unrest in human mind, more the people trying to learn , more the life becoming competative and fruitless, our age when we were youth in 1960-1970 , life was very charming and full oflove, bollywood brought somuch bad sense to our youth, now it is in reach of everyone, everyone is hankering after hallucination , nothing, life is become hell, all relation have become money, all u s a culture is going to invade the indian culture, everything will be for sale

how to get out of it ,simply follow the yoga and become follower of mahatama budda, nothing new and old exist in this world, this the karma and enlightement of soul which give peace to you, life is full of up and down, altitude and our behavious conditions our neighbourhood, thankyou for reading my worlds

Seeing the current form of the men in blue , it's quite difficult to say anything . But the win at the Wanderer's might have certainly boost their confidence for the future part of the tour . Also the anger and the reaction's of the Indian people back home might have shacken them. So we should live on our hopes , that they do well and see what actually happens there.

It was good to see india winning their 1st 20-20 .SA HAD DROPPED 6 EXPERIENCED PLAYERS,so the Indians were able to handle the pressure on SA. Otherwise ,in the case of Pollock, Ntini,etc; it would've been a totally different case.For Indians to establish themselves well in 20-20, they need to exploit more pitch-hitting batsmen from the state levels. Only test cricket in state levels has made Ranji trophy,etc boring for the audience.
20-20 or 50over game format should be held at least 3-4 times in a year.

India can certainly do well in twenty 20 format as it has lot of potential . But one cant judge them on the basis of only one victory & moreover SA had rested 6 of its main players including Ntini & Nel who had tormented them in earlier matches . Considering this it should have been a cake walk for Indians but they won it after lot of huffing & puffing thanks largely to brilliant effort by young Dinesh .

India has the potential to excell in the new format of international cricket,Twenty20.We have some good bowlers as well as some hard hitters, so only we need the positive body language from the players to be in top.

dear indian
all media upsurge and internet age have brought tension and unrest in human mind, more the people trying to learn , more the life becoming competative and fruitless, our age when we were youth in 1960-1970 , life was very charming and full oflove, bollywood brought somuch bad sense to our youth, now it is in reach of everyone, everyone is hankering after hallucination , nothing, life is become hell, all relation have become money, all u s a culture is going to invade the indian culture, everything will be for sale

how to get out of it ,simply follow the yoga and become follower of mahatama budda, nothing new and old exist in this world, this the karma and enlightement of soul which give peace to you, life is full of up and down, altitude and our behavious conditions our neighbourhood, thankyou for reading my worlds